4. Children Napalmed
via dailymail.co.uk
I doubt anybody can possibly imagine what it’s like to be attacked by planes carrying napalm unless they have actually lived through it. Which is something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. Napalm is one of the more evil weapons of war, a mixture of jellied gasoline that is incredibly flammable, extremely hard to put out, and just for bonus points, sticks to human skin.
This photo shows the aftermath of an allied (U.S.and South Vietnamese forces) air strike on a village held by the North Vietnamese Army. Unfortunately, one pilot mistook fleeing villagers for fighters. The girl in the picture, Kim Phuc, was horribly burned along her back. It may be an iconic photo but it still gives one the chills to think that a nine-year-old child would have to suffer from the hounds of war. Oh yeah, two of her cousins were killed outright by the bomb. So she must have been the lucky one…
3. Cop Shoots Guerilla
via blogspot.com
As we mentioned earlier, the Vietcong were the revolutionary arm of the South Vietnamese populace, the ones who wanted to unite with North Vietnam in a unified, Communist-led country. To the South Vietnamese government and to its allies like the U.S. they were a terrible terror, winning the hearts and minds of average people and actively fighting against the regime in power. To many people in South Vietnam, they were liberators and heroes.
One thing that happens in war is executions. And those executions aren’t always done after a trial. Or very cleanly. In this very famous photo from the war, Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lam, is shot in the head, on a busy street corner in Saigon, on February 1, 1968. The shooter is General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the head of the national police force. In a revealing sign of just how deeply divisive this war was, Loan told reporters immediately after the execution, “These guys kill a lot of our people and I think Buddha will forgive me.” Forget remorse in this war- it’s not home.
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